The government is receiving a lot of flak in the 2020s for using Gen AI in some of its visual communications. As far as we know, there are two viral examples this year: This PUB ad, and most recently there was the infamous National Day poster. In 2024, there was also this ad by the Ministry of Finance. Of course, there will be those who say this is no big deal, that this is just technology progressing, and that we all need to get on board with it. We’ve heard this opinion before. But this article is for people who are willing to consider another perspective, particularly so if you’re a decision-maker in an organisation, government or otherwise. Our main argument is that Gen AI imagery is a poor fit for Singapore government communications. (Of course, at this point we would also like to acknowledge our possible bias: we do work with the government to ...